Microwave towards 2020

Microwave will continue to be a major mobile backhaul medium, connecting around 50 percent of all radio sites in 2019.

The rapidly rising capacity demands have led some market observers to point to the need for fiber, especially in metropolitan and suburban areas, and to express the view that microwave solutions will not be able to keep up in the future.

The reality is somewhat different, however. Not only can microwave solutions meet virtually every conceivable backhaul requirement today – with gigabit-per-second capabilities – they will continue to evolve to meet ever-increasing capacity demands and unprecedented levels of flexibility and cost-efficiency.

"Microwave Towards 2020" gives Ericsson's view of important aspects of microwave in backhaul networks including capacity needs and capabilities, spectrum, total cost of ownership, packet functionalities and service defined networks and how this will evolve towards 2020.